What happens when you put a room full of HR professionals, Talent Attraction specialists, research obsessed recruitment data heads, and a selfie stick in a room together?

The OTaC Awards

For those out there who need a refresher, we at Potentialpark are a Stockholm-based research organization filled with a bunch of passionate, research-minded, ex-pats (and a couple of real Swedes), who are passionate about understanding candidate expectations and desires when they passively or actively look for jobs. We are crusaders for improving the candidate experience and solving talent gaps that arise from communication misfires.

Our annual rankings are based on the combination of detailed research on the content desires of candidates and detailed reviews of the Online Talent Communication of global employers. Our research lets us measure the content of employers, across industries, with an overall ranking that is built on performance across four online communication channels: the Career Website, Online Application, Social Media, and Mobile Career Tools. The US OTaC Conference gives us an opportunity to recognize the work of the best companies, plus creates a forum for communication among top talent communication experts.

The OTaC Conference

And what a conference! KPMG was so kind to host us at their park avenue New York office, with a beautiful view of the city and the Hudson. Big shout out to the entire KPMG team for being such amazing hosts for us! We started the day with a roundtable session with representatives from top employers like Johnson & Johnson, GM, Altria, KPMG, and Deloitte. After lunch, it was time to talk about the trends from the year. Potentialpark shared some of the key developments seen this year, and we were able to present two fantastic case-studies from Janet Jones of Rutgers University and from Owen Sweeney of L’Oréal. It all wrapped up with the full announcement of our award winners, followed by drinks and time to socialize.

To give a brief rundown of the trends- the content expectations for candidates are developing towards higher expectations for guidance and engagement. It is not enough to have the information available, candidates want it delivered to them. We saw that the job search is losing it’s importance on the career site. When it comes to applying, more candidates than ever report having dropped out of an application online, and why? they tell us that they need more information before even starting the application, about how long it will take, what forms they need, will they answer questions, etc.

The biggest frustrations for candidates is no response or too long waiting for a response.

Special Visitors!

From Rutgers, Janet Jones, gave us the candidate perspective, when it comes to university students. She revealed some of the miscommunication and misperceptions that students experience in their career search. A clear reminder that the words recruiters say and the interpretations by students often don’t match. Plus, she offered interesting insights on a new piece of recruiting technology- virtual interviews. Rutgers has invested in making specific rooms in their careers center dedicated to facilitating virtual interviews. The reception has been mixed, but she did tell us that one emphatic supporter described how much he liked only having to dress up from the waist up when he had virtual interviews at home. J

Owen Sweeney from L’Oréal gave unique perspective on the way data has infiltrated every aspect of his talent communication and attraction strategies. He has recognized that pivotal to his success in not just filling roles, but hiring the right people, is understanding all the data that is available to him. By pinpointing how recruits come to him, if and where they are dropping out of the application, he has been able to mitigate costs while maximizing his ability to attract the best talent possible.

So Who Won?

Congratulations to the OTaC Overall Champions! The top company was Accenture, with Sodexo and General Motors rounding out the top 3. ABB saw the biggest improvement. You can find the top 30 companies at the bottom of the article. The full rankings by channel can be found on the potentialpark.com site. Check it out!

How to learn more:

All in all, the ceremony was a great opportunity to network a little, and hopefully, learn a lot. For those of you who attended, thanks for joining, and for those of you who couldn’t make it- there’s always next year. Congratulations to those companies that made the top 30, and for those interested in learning more about the trends we saw this year in candidate expectations, please contact me!